Generalized Stochastic Workflow Net-based quantitative analysis of business process performance

During the life cycle of business process management, the quantitative analysis of the time performance measure is pivotal to guarantee the validity of process model and to improve its quality. Based on the characteristic of management processes and the assumption that the processing time of activities is either zero or a stochastic variable obeying the exponential distribution, the generalized stochastic workflow net model of the business process is constructed, which facilitates the analysis of time performance through the theories on generalized stochastic Petri net and Markov chain. Then the computational formula of the average flow time of workflow is deduced. Finally, a case study is given, and the computational value is compared with that of simulation. The test shows that these two results are almost identical.